U.S. is skeptical of Iran's plan

Proposal to hand over portion of uranium could delay additional sanctions

WASHINGTON - A proposal that the Iranian government designed to ease the standoff over its nuclear program is threatening to disrupt efforts led by the Obama administration to intensify international pressure on the country.

The proposal, which would require Tehran to temporarily hand over a portion of its uranium inventory, drew a skeptical reaction from the United States and its Western allies, who questioned whether it would begin to address long-standing international concerns over the purpose of the Iranian nuclear program.

Despite questions raised by U.S., French, German and Russian officials, leaders of several countries called for further investigation of the offer, increasing the likelihood of additional delay in an already tardy effort to impose a new round of U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran.

The Iranian stratagem came as a particularly stinging setback to the Obama administration, which lately had been buoyed by hopes that it finally was about to deliver added international economic punishment that could eventually force Iran to the bargaining table.

U.S. officials now face a choice of rejecting the deal and appearing intransigent, or accepting it, potentially allowing Iran to defuse the mounting world pressures with the use of indefinite delay.

Under the latest proposal, brokered by Brazil and Turkey and announced with fanfare on Monday, Iran would ship 2,640 pounds of its low-enriched uranium to Turkey. In return, Iran would receive 265 pounds of uranium enriched to higher purity levels from France and Russia within a year. That material would allow the Iranians to operate a small nuclear reactor that produces medical isotopes to treat the ill.

The low-enriched uranium in Iran's stockpile is calculated at 3.5 percent pure, while the more highly enriched fuel plates are 20 percent pure.

Experts have said uranium must be enriched to 90 percent purity to produce weapons.

The offer described Monday is a variation on an earlier one proposed by the United States and its allies last October as means of slowing down Iran's nuclear-enrichment operation.

The United States and many other world powers fear that Iran's accelerating enrichment program is aimed at acquiring nuclear weapons know-how, though Iran insists it is exclusively for peaceful purposes.

Diplomats and nuclear experts Monday quickly pointed to unanswered questions and said the new plan falls far short, from the Western viewpoint, of the deal that was first proposed last Oct. 1.

Under both deals, 2,640 pounds of low-enriched uranium would be transferred out of Iran. Last year, that quantity represented about 70 percent of Iran's stockpile. But since then, Iran has accumulated a substantial new quantity of uranium, so that removal of 2,640 pounds would only account for about half of the stockpile.

In addition, Iran embarked in February on a new program of enriching its uranium to higher levels, about 20 percent, making the proposal less important from the Western perspective.

The head of Iran's nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, insisted on Monday that the new proposal did not mean a halt to Iran's enrichment program.

The White House said that the plan to ship the uranium was a "positive step," but that the continuation of the higher enrichment "is a direct violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions."